ChaosRaven

Apparently KnS1 was a bit of a late bloomer. It had a pretty bad start but at the time when the hardcopy was released it seemed to have recovered because it also got some official reviews that helped with sales. That probably still didn't turn it in a best seller though. Cartagra surely wasn't able to make such a come back so far and I don't know how KnS2 has developed meanwhile. But Flowers can't really be compared to them because of the ultimate financial deciding factor that separates it from them - Steam!

Oh great, if they just fix it with patches afterwards, it'll mean that the hard copy will be full of bugs again. And isn't it funny, if I want to figure out which of my hard copies are from Jast that's usually a very easy task to do - I just have to grab all the ones which are only playable with a bunch of patches and hotfixes and I get exacly the ones from Jast. Looks like this tradition won't change so fast. *sigh*

I think the more serious candidates were already mentioned so I'll add some lighter ones: Koihime Musou and Kamidori have both protagonists that get more and more powerful and influential during the game.

Comyu has a particular strong character cast with Kagome and Mayuki as heroines and a cool antagonist with Gasai. And the character interaction between the protagonist and the trio of Kagome, Benio and Mayuki in particular was great. I didn't play Gahkthun so I can't really judge its quality, but just from the comments I've seen, the only winable heroine doesn't exactly seem to be the greatest. So if you want a great heroine cast I'm pretty sure you're better off with Comyu, if you're more into the mood for a good story, Gahkthun 'might' be the better choice since I wouldn't exactly say that the story was a strong point of Comyu.

While I can understand the reasoning, the current trend seems to indicate that popular translated titles seem to have the biggest chance to get a professional retranslation like Clannad or Hoshimem. And the ones with an actual decent translation at least get another editing pass. So i wouldn't necessarily agree to that since popular and highly rated untranslated titles don't exactly seem to have a particular high chance to get a professional translation so far. And wouldn't a translation with some flaws still be better if the alternative would be a definite never? I personally still prefer a half-decent translation of a great title a thousand times over a crap VN with good translation. Because even the best translation can't make a bad title good, while I can still get some fun out of a great title with a flawed translation. But that's just me...

It's interesting that the protagonist in Chaos;Child seems to have almost the opposite personality of the one from Chaos;Head according to VNDB - arrogant and proactive instead of antisocial and reserved. That's actually a good thing since there would be no chance I'd read Chaos;Child if it would be the same rotten low-life like in Chaos;Head. The guy was a disgrace for the whole male gender. Probably the worst hetare protagonist I've ever seen in a VN - god, did I hate that guy! The new one in Chaos;Child looks kinda cool though, so the chance I'd read it increased from a clear zero to a 'very likely' if it would be translated. I think I'd even vote for it against Damekoi.

Um, aren't those 2016 sales instead of 2015?

The last title I bought from Jast was the 'My Girlfriend is the President' fan disc, and that one had several passages that they even forgot to translate. And the things I heard about the quality of the Shiny Days release aren't particularly convincing either. Something like quality control or at least proof reading doesn't really seem to exist for Jast so I'm not particular confident that the state of Flowers will significantly improve for release.

Don't forget that If my Heart had Wings is available for quite a long time now. It went through several Steam sales and was also available through several destributors who also offered Steam keys like MangaGamer, J-List, etc. Ironically, the huge amount of negative press it got also brought it a lot of attention. And it's still a quality title with some stellar production values.

Wasn't a big fan of the anime since they pretty much replaced common sense with plain gore. I've rarely seen an anime where the characters were so eager to 'outdumb' each other like in this one. And the biggest offender were the police like usual - they even made Gotham police look smart and that's saying something. Even my hamster could have gotten gangster boss with ease in this city. And who the heck designed those rediculous police weapons which require so much preparation time that the opponent can buy a rocket launcher meanwhile come back and still has enough time to blow up the bearer?! Dropped this one midway since the characters were simply too pathetic. Urobuchi did a much better job with Puella Magi Madoka Magica. The VN would have to improve a LOT to make me interested.

You can reach 50 VN's per year pretty fast if you try to dig through MangaGamers and Jast's nukige program...

I'm finished with Noble Works now, or at least with the three routes from Akari, Maya and Sena I wanted to play. Overall it was a good comedy VN, but I wouldn't really call it a good romance VN. It was a bit too 'funny' for that, 'less' would have been 'more' at times. The character interaction was good for the most part but the routes somehow lacked substance. Each one had a rather cheap mini drama which didn't really fit the whole comedy theme. It would have been better to either tone down the comedy a bit or replace the drama with a more funny story arc. I think Alcot's My Girlfriend is the President showed more creativity here. Furthermore, Akari's dad in her route and Kotetsu in Maya's route were more annoying than funny. Sena also got a bit creepy with her father complex in her route. I was almost relieved when it was over. In comparison to Princess Evangile I'd say it had the better character interaction and a better protagonist but Princess Evangile had more to offer in the individual routes, especially in the ones from Ayaka and Ritsuko. However, both titles can give each other a high five if it comes to creating better side characters than the main heroines. The otaku maid Chiaki not getting a route in Noble Works was almost as much as a crime as Ruriko not getting one in Princess Evangile. And Makoto should have gotten one too. Something that impressed me very much in this title were the sprite dynamics. Different perspectives, moving, hopping and lots of facial expressions which were even changing several times in a sentence. The title must have had its own sprite coordinator in addition to the usual artists and writers. I don't think I've seen such rich sprite dynamics yet - except Majikoi maybe. There were parts in Majikoi where I almost thought I'm watching an arcade game, intuitively grabbing the joystick and mentally switching to street fighter mode. So Majikoi is certainly comparable. Favorite characters: Chiaki >> Akari > Maya = Makoto > Hinata > Shizuru > Sena Overall it was a decent read, but it would have required at least a route for Chiaki to have a chance to get one of my favorites.

Ever 17 actually has surprisingly high production values for its age. You'll see lots of background NPC's on the station which is quite rare nowadays and there's even an animated scene where the water enters the station which was quite impressive. And I still think that Sora is one of the most pretty girls around...

Interesting, happened sometime in 2013 apparently. I wonder why he left? But considering that he worked over 10 years for them, maybe he just wanted a change of scenery.

It doesn't make a big difference if you're just considering the 'translated' Liar-Soft visual novels. And Sakurai is arguably their main writer. I didn't even know that he writes for other studios too. Okay, that makes already 2 non-Sakurai Liar-Soft titles. Still 4 from Sakurai at least, and those are the bigger ones I think.

I see, it never bothered me when it was Vita only, but now since it's available on PC, I actually have to think about playing it. Eventually I'll give it a try, but not now. I still have some other titles on my translated to read list.

How long is this game? You seem to have finished it very fast. Is it just so short or did you marathon it? It looks a bit hm... freaky - is it really a serious title or more of a (black) comedy?

Very simple, because the customer base is much smaller. No million sales like Call of Duty & Co.

Considering that pretty much everything translated from Liar-Soft except Cannonball is from Sakurai it doesn't make much of a difference I guess. BTW, is Sakurai now a man or woman? I'm hearing a different gender in every second discussion about her (or him). Is Sakurai the Ranma 1/2 of VN writers?!

My overall favorite VN from last year was Unionism Quartet. I really loved that one. Can't wait for the release of the announced fan disc. My favorite translated VN was Eden*. It was so touching, I shed manly tears. Both brought me a new favorite character with Mariel (UQ) and Sion (Eden), and those were just the top of an overall great cast.

While I don't know what Conjueror is translating, I would make almost every bet that it's not Dies Irae. I think that was speculated last year too and we got... Pygmalion & Co. It's probably another Propeller or LiarSoft title like Kusarihime, Asairo or Evolimit. I wouldn't even rule out Sougeki no Jaeger.

This is actually my biggest problem with Liar-Soft VN's. I like overarching plots with well developed characters, but Liar-Soft VN's are more loosely related short story episodes with throw-away characters that only act as mere plot-devices and are dropped immediately after the episode ends. Sharnoth's ultra-simplistic 'monster of the week' episode structure therefore left a strong 'never again' impression on me. And since all Liar-Soft titles seem to be structured in the same way, there's probably little hope that I'll like any of them. And that's a bit of a shame since some of their scenarios actually look quite interesting, especially the upcoming Tokeidai no Jeanne. But weak character casts are a definite no-go and will ruin even the best scenario for me.

I throw in the usual AkabeiSoft2 suggestions G-Senjou no Maou and Sharin no Kuni...

Says the guy with a bunny ears wearing kawaii loli as avatar... Anyway, I guess when Nekopara 2 is released I should give the series a try. I bought the previous parts months ago, but didn't find time and motivation to play it yet.

It's the same artist so there shouldn't be that much differences I guess. Though the protagonist in the first one looks older and I think there are more loli's in GoD2. Anyway, currently it's certainly not particularly high on my reading list, but I'll keep an eye on the VNDB ratings.